


The Need of Everything

by boltlightning



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: (also known as Greeza), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brotherhood/Manga spoilers, Greed-Riza, Ishval Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-05-29 23:32:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15084155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boltlightning/pseuds/boltlightning
Summary: Hawkeye wants something, Greed is sure of it. Everyone wants something. And he is determined to find out what it is that she wants.(Or: Greed!Riza AU, from their beginning to his end.)





	1. prologue

Everybody wants something.

Greed doesn’t pretend to understand humans, but he had not lived on this earth for two centuries and not noticed trends. They want power, fame, wealth, or love, and very few desires stray from those categories. Greed is candid enough to see that humans aren’t quite as simple as his family would have him believe. They are complicated, and he would know — he _is_ the only Homunculus inhabiting a separate, stubborn human host, after all.

But he isn’t sure what Lieutenant Hawkeye wants. 

She must want _something_ — everybody does, and she had proven strong enough to harbor the very embodiment of want — but whatever it is, she’s keeping it close to her chest. At first, her presence is undetected, tucked neatly into the storm of other souls whirling around in Greed’s stone. But her soul is there nonetheless, biding her time, refusing to answer his probing. She is silent but loudly present, a constant unnerving weight at the back of his mind.

Perhaps she just wants freedom, Greed muses. Certainly, anyone who had been trapped within their very body would want to be free. But she remains cold and inaccessible, and Greed doesn’t push it.

She stirs when Greed passes the Flame Alchemist in the hallways of the command center. Wrath had warned him the two were close, but Greed was not privy to the depth of their relationship. In council meetings, Colonel Mustang sits towards the end of the long table of generals, and Greed stands behind Wrath as the dutiful secretary Hawkeye is supposed to be. He observes Mustang carefully, in passing glances. The man is notably taller than Hawkeye, but notably shorter than Wrath. His broad shoulders are relaxed and his temper quiet, even as he sits in the lion’s den. This is the man who killed Lust with his alchemy, a man with deadly power at the tips of his fingers. As the colonel sits there, dwarfed by his colleagues, he does not look so big or threatening.

But Greed isn’t in the habit of underestimating humans. 

Mustang’s sharp eyes are careful to never look towards Greed. Hawkeye’s soul curls up tighter, radiating an aching sort of burn that makes Greed feel an unbearable sadness he doesn’t quite understand.

He gets the same sort of feeling when he examines his new body in the mirror, and is surprised to find a massive, intricate tattoo all down Hawkeye’s back. Parts of it are missing, like it had been erased. Greed doesn’t ask, and gets the feeling the lieutenant will never tell.

So what is it that Hawkeye is after? These instances are the most expressive she has ever been. Her outbursts are few and infrequent, and almost always in defense of her morals or comrades. Maybe they were destined to be opposites, and Hawkeye was the embodiment of charity meant to tear Greed apart from the inside. Father did have a cruel sense of humor at times, when he bothered to show it at all…Greed wouldn’t put something like this past him.

He looks for other answers, anyway. Since Hawkeye will not engage with him, Greed does some digging in what resources he has available in his new position as Wrath's assistant: military records. Greed is not above following Hawkeye's paper trail. She doesn’t want power; she had turned down promotions time and time again throughout her military career, content with her position as Mustang’s adjutant. It wasn’t fame; she never responded to public interest or interview requests with the Hawk’s Eye, preferring to bury her notoriety from the Ishvalan War entirely. It wasn’t wealth, certainly; she lived simply and often below her means if her pay slips were any indication.

But love…love took many forms, most of them unquantifiable by bureaucratic recordkeeping. The rumors about fraternization between Hawkeye and Colonel Mustang are common, but so incredibly proliferate that Greed couldn’t separate the gospel from the gossip. He couldn’t track down a single source if the rumors, nor could he get anything from the lieutenant herself. Hawkeye seized control of her body to snap at Wrath about her coworkers on Mustang’s team; she clearly feels strongly for them, too. She has apparently spent the better part of her last few years with this team, and her loyalty is immeasurable and often unpredictable.

Envy often called humans weak for their fondness for one another. Hawkeye’s soul is at her strongest when those close to her are threatened or hurting. Envy is wrong, but then again, he is not the brightest of the Homunculi. And Greed would never underestimate humans the way he did.

Hawkeye wants _something_ , Greed is sure of it. Everyone wants something. And he is determined to find out what it is that she wants.


	2. Into Darkness, Unafraid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the chronology begins! these first few chapters are going to attempt to condense a lot of plot points into a reasonable length, so please bear with me here.
> 
> this story comes to you from a text conversation my good friend scout started back in october of 2015, and it only took me three years to finally get it out of my head and onto a page. please enjoy!

The colonel, body and ego wounded, is finally convinced that he won’t be any help against Gluttony. He scowls at Edward from inside Doctor Knox’s car, openly grimacing with pain.

“You have a job to do,” Fullmetal says, flippant as ever, “and the car’s lookin’ a little full. You’ll need all the help you can get, and doesn’t that include what information this Gluttony guy has?”

Knox bangs a fist into the steering wheel of the car; the engine gives an unhealthy growl in response. “You dumbasses!”

“You can’t really believe we’ll let a couple of children fight this battle for us.” Hawkeye stands with her gun lowered, her other hand on the car door. Briefly, she catches Mustang’s eye. His expression is dark, but otherwise unreadable. He is mulling something over, but it is hidden from her. Was it fear? Worry? Hawkeye has always seen resemblances of a young Roy Mustang in the brothers, particularly when they are being bull-headed, and assumes that the colonel must see the similarities too.

“Brother’s right; our place is here,” Al affirms. “I don’t think it matters much that we’re children.”

Ed shifts, a wry smile spreading across his face. “This was our mission to begin with, and we’re going to see it through. Thanks for all your help up to now.”

The conversation halts awkwardly as everyone processes the situation. Mustang is still eyeing Edward with the expression Hawkeye couldn’t quite place; Prince Ling, in the back of the car, is fussing over his adjutant, sweat beading his brow. Knox shakes his head.

“Dumbasses,” the doctor repeats, quietly and without weight.

“Alright, Fullmetal,” Mustang says finally, “stay, then. Hawkeye — stay with them.”

Hawkeye and Edward both look at the colonel with surprise.

“No way!” Ed sticks his head in the car to glare at Mustang. “You need her way more than we do! Have you even seen yourself recently?”

This is a valid, if insulting, observation — the exertion from his flight out of Gluttony’s all-consuming path of revenge had most likely reopened the wounds above his hip. A thin veneer of sweat sticks his bangs to his forehead, and Hawkeye can see that he’s even trembling slightly from the pain. She keeps her thoughts to herself as Mustang snaps, “And look at you! You’re fifteen and don’t even reach my shoulders. It is _irresponsible_ to leave you here without my finest officer, to say the least.”

Guttural noises sound from the forest, and suddenly, a section of trees vanishes from the skyline. Ed starts, and doesn’t bother to express his indignation at the remark about his height. Mustang makes an impatient sound low in his throat. “Hawkeye. It’s up to you. I won’t be fighting Homunculi when I’m in the city, and just because I’m wounded doesn’t mean I’m useless.”

“Stubborn bastard,” Edward mutters, but Mustang disregards it. He meets her eyes steadily as he always does. Hawkeye has faith in the colonel, and would trust him with her life — but that doesn’t mean she trusts him with his. His reckless tendencies put him in dangerous situations more than she cared for, and it takes all her self-restraint not to shout that _you need protection too, you idiot!_

She bites her lip, and he frowns in response. Flanking her, Ed and Al turn to face to forest. Gluttony grows closer and closer the more time they waste.

“Alright, sir,” she answers at length. “As you wish.” 

Mustang nods promptly, his brow still knit. “I’ll expect you back in the office at the usual time tomorrow, Lieutenant. The real battle begins tomorrow.”

It sounds like an order, but it is a plea — _come back to me after this_ , he asks, beneath the façade of his title and authority. She fights back a smile, and responds instead with a curt nod and a salute. “Of course, Colonel.”

Another roar splits the air. Impatiently, Knox gives the engine one final rev and shouts to Prince Ling in the backseat, “Close that damn door already! We gotta move!”

The prince is torn; he looks from Lan Fan, woozy and semi-conscious in the car, to the Elrics, where they stand ready for combat. With a frustrated groan, he slams the car door shut and leans out the window. “You better save a piece of that thing for me, Ed!” he calls over the din of the engine. “I’ll be right the hell back, you hear?”

“Loud and clear, Ling!” Ed calls back, waving lazily. As the car peels away from the shack, the brothers leap into the forest, but Hawkeye watches the car go. It putters over the hill and slowly vanishes into the distance, taking the colonel away and into an entirely different sort of danger. 

_Come back to me after this._

Hawkeye takes a breath to steel her nerves. In that moment, she clears everything from her head. She doesn’t think about the colonel’s wounds, or how much pain he’s in, or the fact that he is drawing up plans for a revolution that could get him executed. She doesn’t think about how the two teenage boys fighting a black hole in the forest have friends and family who love them. She doesn’t think about getting killed by this beast and returning to Roy Mustang in a wooden casket.

For the moment, all that exists is the gun in her hands and the target up ahead. She takes another breath and plunges into the fight.

 

* * *

 

What happens in the heat of battle is always difficult to process until the dust settles. Hawkeye learns quickly that her guns do nothing but stagger her immortal, unworldly opponents. She and Al keep Envy on his toes while Ed occupies Gluttony, and it seems they are gaining the upper hand.

Al is pushed away from the battle — briefly, with a toss of Envy’s hand — but the distraction is long enough for Envy to pull his tricks. Suddenly, Colonel Mustang stands there in his place, clutching at his wounds, wincing up at her through his bangs. It is sudden enough to make her fingers hesitate, resting on the trigger but unwilling to fire.

Then he barks with laughter, and his face splits with a ferocious, alien smile. “Gotcha!”

Behind her, Hawkeye can hear Gluttony’s roar, too close for comfort. Ed shouts to her indistinctly, but she is trapped; she cannot move fast enough to escape either Homunculus. Abruptly, Ed slams into her, his automail shoulder colliding with her ribs — and then there is nothing but darkness and fury.

When she wakes up, there are fires smoldering around her. Liquid laps at her clothes where she lays, too thick and dark to be water. It stains like blood, and a quick glance in the light of the embers verifies her suspicions.

She swallows down the urge to retch as she examines her surroundings. There is no natural light, no edges, no architecture or sense of distance. Unease crawls under her skin as she looks for something to serve as a torch, attempting to investigate further. Was Edward here? Was _Envy_ here? And where could Gluttony have possible sent them?

Slowly, the events of the day come back to her, and it is more than she can bear. _Come back to me after this_ , the colonel had commanded. Hawkeye thinks bitterly to herself that his order would not be as easy to follow as she had thought.


	3. Belly of the Beast

For once, Ed doesn’t have any answers.

The young alchemist finds Riza as she digs through the items that Gluttony had consumed. They rescue Al’s hand — it must have been swept up in the swallow that brought them here. Ed ties it to his back as Riza makes sense of the rest of this refuse. Half of the colonel’s car, the barrel of her shotgun, splinters of wood from the cabin, entire trees…he had swallowed it all, and them along with it. 

“Oh,” she gasps quietly, watching the flames of the wreckage flicker. “This is all the colonel’s fire.” 

“He always knows how to make a mess.” Ed smiles weakly at her, but the joke feels thin and empty in their current situation. He clears his throat and instead gestures to her shotgun. “I can fix that for you. Who knows what else Gluttony has swallowed? We might need to fight.” 

They begin to walk, and the going is slow. They had been unconscious long enough for the rush of battle to fade, the thrill becoming instead a dull ache of body and soul. Colonel Mustang was usually the one keeping an eye on Ed’s personal research, so it is with caution that Riza asks if he has any idea where they are. He has no answers, and that seems to frustrate him even more. 

They fall silent, and plod along aimlessly in this place in hopes of any sort of end. Riza feels as though the sky had suddenly turned solid. There is something heavy about this place, yet it is empty and open all the same. 

At length, Riza sighs. “I’m sorry, Ed. I shouldn’t have hesitated. Gluttony wouldn’t have been able to get us if I had just moved a little quicker.” 

“Lieutenant. You have nothing to apologize for,” he says, almost too quickly. His eyes are hard.  “We’re _going_ to get out of here. Al needs me, and the colonel needs you.” 

Ed pauses, turning to shine his torchlight onto a well. The stones parts the carpet of blood and reveals a way down. “We just need to…find an end. Any sort of barrier.” He picks up a piece of stone debris nearby and drops it into the well; if this place ends, it has to hit a bottom somewhere. They wait for a sound, and do not hear anything back. Even after a minute. Even after several more. 

Riza meets his gaze, and Ed’s eyes are just as wide as hers. It isn’t often that Ed is confused or befuddled — and she cannot blame him. “If it didn’t hit anything…then…” 

She turns her torch in front of her, then behind her. An endless vastness stretches before them. Without saying a word, they both sprint forward away from the endless well, splashing waves of blood in their wake. They run and run towards the fleeting hope of a finite end to this place, and they do not stop until they are too exhausted to continue. There is a stone platform near where they slow to a crawl, as though waiting for them. Breathlessly, the two slink on top and collapse, grateful for at least a dry place to lay.

Riza and Ed are all the worst things: they are tired, they are hungry, and they are hopeless. They sit for a long time with only the void above them and the ache in their muscles.

“I’m sorry,” Riza says again.

“Don’t be.” Ed’s reply is flippant, but even his normal bravado is starting to chip away. His voice is thin. “My teacher’s training was much worse than this. If I can survive that, well…”

He lets her imagination finish the sentence. Riza can’t help but smile, albeit weakly. “You brothers have always been—“

Abruptly, she jolts up into a sitting position. Her hand snatches up the shotgun from where she had put it next to them. Ed rises more slowly, glaring in the direction in which Lieutenant Hawkeye is focusing so intently.

Envy approaches from the gloom, the flames of their torches flickering over his features. He lacks any of the flamboyant irreverence Riza had observed during their earlier fight. No, Envy is just as tired as they are — but there is a smoldering anger to him, just enough of a scowl to set off alarm bells in Riza’s head. She lowers the shotgun, but does not take her finger off the trigger.

“Of course you two survived,” he sighs. He stops and stomps his foot; it creates more ripples in the thick blood than Riza would have assumed. “If all humans were as unkillable as you and your merry gang, I think I’d like them more. Or less. I’m in a foul mood and can’t tell.”

The conversation becomes less easy to follow from there — Envy and Edward delve into talk of alchemical secrets that were beyond the scope of Berthold Hawkeye’s research. Gluttony is a creation of the Homunculi’s Father, who had created him in an attempt to recreate the Gate. This void is unescapable, Envy says, in the tone of a behind resigned to his fate. There is nothing to do here but wait until they die.

Riza remains silent, even as Ed deals with the reality of it all. All he can do is ask questions. He asks Envy about this Father, about the Philosopher’s Stones. Father is someone (or something) different from Fuhrer Bradley, like they had assumed. Bradley was a Homunculus, but Father _created_ them. And with all those souls needed to create the stones, the Ishvalan War was a part of their plans.

Edward is shivering with rage as he speaks with Envy, and Riza empathizes. For the first time since they encountered Envy, that alien grin spreads across his face.

“Do you remember what sparked the war?” he asks, lounging casually across his stone slab.

With a sharp inhale, Riza remembers. “An officer executed an Ishvalan child,” she says. For some reason, when she imagines the child, she sees the face of the one she had buried on her last day of the occupation. It is a memory she hadn’t wished to recover.

“It was me.” He cackles, leaning forward like a child gleefully misbehaving. “ _I’m_ the one that shot and killed that child." 

She doesn’t think; she just shoots. Envy’s head snaps back from the force of the shotgun blast, but he is still smiling. Calmly, ignoring the shaking of her hands, Riza discards the shell and loads in another bullet. 

“Choose your words carefully,” she says quietly. Her words echo in the din of the void. 

“Oh? You mean you _don’t_ want to hear how I posed as an officer who opposed the occupation?” He is visibly excited now, practically bouncing where he sits. “You don’t want to hear about how beautiful it was to watch the carnage ripple across the country? To see it spread miles and miles across innocent land? You don’t want to hear about the tribunal held for the officer whose face I stole, and how I crushed the opposition with one single bullet?”

He laughs again, a shrill sound. Edward moves slowly towards the Homunculus, clenching his fists to his side. “It was _brilliant!_ It was a war that will never be forgotten! And all it took was a single bullet.”

“Your war destroyed my hometown.” There is cold fury in Ed’s voice. His automail clatters as his fist grits even tighter together. “You turned all the Ishvalans into refugees, into outcasts. You made Scar become a killer. You—your war killed Winry’s parents. It was _you!_ ”

He emphasizes the last word with a solid punch from his automail hand, but Envy doesn’t budge. He doesn’t even shift as his eyes move to look at Ed, glassy in the flickering light. 

“We’re going to die here,” the Homunculus says slowly, “and you still want to fight? Very well, Pipsqueak. I'll show you a fight.” Envy’s form begins to shift, and the ground beneath them begins to rumble. 

“Ed, move!” Riza shouts. Mentally, she inventories all her weapons — every gun and magazine hidden on her person would need to count. Ed leaps backwards next to Riza, panicking as Envy’s form shifts to become bigger and bigger.

“He didn’t move an inch when I hit him,” Ed says breathlessly.

“And did you see the ripples he was making in the blood? He’s going to be huge.” Riza cocks the shotgun and levels it, ignoring the sweat that has suddenly beaded on her brow. What use would guns be against a monster? She only grips her weapon closer; it is all she has.

Envy stands several stories tall, monstrous and green and indescribable beyond that. Every surface of his new form is a face, moaning and weeping in pain and misery. He is not a person, but a writhing mass of souls that will exist in agony for an eternity. Riza feels bile crawl up her throat, and it takes all her strength to force it down.

“We might die here, but we’ll at least make him feel some pain before we do!” Ed shouts above the mournful din. He claps his hand together and touches it to the blood; from it, he pulls a heavy quarterstaff made of iron. Riza swings her shotgun onto her back and draws her service pistol instead, catching the rod in her free hand. “You’re gonna need a weapon to get up close and personal — just in case!”

He draws his own polearm from the blood, then charges into the fray. Fighting is almost futile against an enemy so large, with so many beings within it; the moment Ed gets close enough to do any damage, he is picked up and flung away. Envy’s massive tail sweeps at Riza, knocking her back in the same direction. There is a sharp _crack_ as several of her ribs are broken, and she lands shakily on all fours, sliding through the blood. Ed dodges to the left to create a distraction, and Riza fires a few bullets from her service pistol as she gets up close.

The faces talkto her, they address her. They reach out with hands and arms that ooze from Envy’s slime, and they latch onto her quarterstaff as she strikes at them. Her disgust and horror freezes her in place long enough for Envy to notice and grab her. Riza snaps from her reverie just in time to slip down out of his grasp, landing poorly on her ankle.

Envy turns his attention to Ed, who had taken the brunt of the Homunculus’s blows. Riza catches her breath and frantically reloads her pistol, firing the entire magazine at the faces that beckon to her. Her distraction is insufficient, and Ed is slowly pulled into Envy’s maw, writhing against the tide of limbs and crying faces.

Riza will remember the sound that Envy’s jaw made when it snapped shut for the rest of her life.

“Envy, open up!” Ed’s voice screams from inside the mouth, muffled. His foot is still sticking out from between the teeth, and he kicks wildly. “I’ll bust your teeth out if you don’t let me out! I think I figured out a way out of here!”

* * *

The slab they had rested on was a part of the Xerxes ruins, swallowed by Gluttony to hide the evidence of the Stones. It is there that they rest while they patch themselves up while Envy scours the nearby wreckage to find the other pieces of the ruins. Riza’s ankle is badly sprained and her ribs broken, and Ed’s automail arm is in desperate need of repairs. They do what they can, making makeshift splints and bandages with what they have on their persons.

“This is the last one,” Envy announces, putting a stone slab down nearby. It causes a wave in the blood to splash up on their resting spot.

“These match the ruins I saw in Xerxes not too long ago,” Ed explains to Riza. He uses some of the nearby blood to draw a circle on the slab, carefully articulating each stroke. “The symbols come together to form a human transmutation circle.”

Riza’s gut goes cold. There was a reason she had never studied alchemy under her father, but she knew enough to feel ill at the implication. “It ends disastrously, doesn’t it? Are you going to attempt it again?”

“In a way.” The young alchemist stands and brushes off his clothes casually, moving with none of the nervousness of someone about to commit a taboo. “Human transmutation opens the Gate, and it costs something. Usually, you’re trying to bring something dead back to life…but what if you use a living being? Or better yet, a living Stone like Envy? It’ll open Gluttony’s gate, and he’ll spit us back out.”

He points at Envy, whose form is ever-writhing. “I have a question, Envy.”

Envy grunts. 

“Philosopher’s stones are made of human lives, yes?”

“You know this already.”

“The city of Xerxes was so advanced, they had technologies it took us decades to develop after they were lost. It was astounding that the entire civilization was destroyed in one night. They…they were turned into a philosopher’s stone, weren’t they?” 

Envy doesn’t answer immediately. Riza cannot help but stare at him, watching the souls appear and then vanish again. “Look, Pipsqueak. You get us out of here, and I’ll tell you everything, alright?”

Fearless now, Ed stands close to Envy. He watches the undulating faces, and does not flinch as they reach out to touch him. “These are the people of Xerxes, aren’t they? They have no bodies to return to.”

“No,” Envy affirms, annoyed, “they don’t. All that is left for them is to be used as energy. You want to get back to your brother? You wanna get the gunslinger over here back to her colonel?”

The monster opens his mouth; a new torrent of limbs emerges, but there is a glowing red stone at the center of the mass. _A philosopher’s stone,_ Riza thinks dumbly, blinking. _A fairy tale, controlling our country and dictating our wars._

“This is what you need, isn’t it? Get us out of here. Use their souls. There’s nothing else you can do.”

And there is genuine grief in Ed’s eyes as he draws the transmutation circle. For a boy that had been through so much in his short 15 years, he still has so much kindness in his heart. She sighs to herself, winces at the pain, and stands to step through the portal that he is opening.

She passes through that white space again as she falls, just like when Gluttony had swallowed them. It is almost calming, a brief reprieve from the chaos of the last few hours. And then it opens up to spit her back into Amestris.


End file.
